Described below is a method of resource allocation in a communication system, in particular mobile communications.
In orthogonal frequency divisional multiple access (OFDMA) downlink as proposed for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) long term evolution (LTE), two methods of transmitting data are suggested. One is localized transmission, in which contiguous groups of tones are allocated to a user and the other is distributed transmission, in which the tones allocated to a user are not contiguous and are distributed across a certain bandwidth. OFDMA has a time and frequency grid comprising 7 symbols, each with a discrete frequency for transmission of information. The quality of a signal from a mobile user device, or user equipment (UE) tends not to change with during the 7 symbols, but does change with frequency. According to the related art, a slow moving UE can report signal quality at range of frequencies and then be scheduled localized resource blocks at frequencies for which the terminal has a good radio channel, but this does not work as well when transmitting to groups, or if the transmitter is fast moving. In the related art, when operating in distributed mode, the transmission is made across the whole bandwidth taking a random choice of available tones. However, if also scheduling a localized transmission, there would be a clash with the tones which have been allocated randomly to the distributed terminal, so it is necessary to notify the localized terminals of which tones are already in use.